Wolf’s Clothing

The last post mislead or at least wasn’t complete. I said the following and didn’t flesh it out. I should link to myself here but screw SEO goodness. The idea is a play on words. I made a purchase from newegg.com and I don’t recall ever be much madder or happier. It is a great example of libertarian, Wall Street, Online poker and so on.

The post was about Newegg breaking supposed rules. They did it with abandon. Wolfie’s comment is a standard and minor disagreement that we have. He likes rules (laws) more than I do. We don’t disagree on human failings just addressing them.

Amazon had specific rules that favor the customer. Newegg is more restrictive with rules galore that they are willing to break. Neither is like our form of government. Both give thought to what they have brought about after the fact. That the basis for the disagreement with Wolfie. If you have a collection of rules, they need flexibility. Without that you the situation that caused my less than deserved ire with Newegg.

Why Wall Street’s inclusion? Is there a place with more rules set in stone? Is there a place more codified than the corporate world being picketed as we speak? Is the solution more rules or is the solution allowing for more flexibility ala Newegg? Wolfie’s solution is more rules to correct wrongs. Forget that solution isn’t working?

I included online poker in my quote noted above. It is an example that got us all exercised from time to time. Rules and more rules being interpreted by petty support people that would be right at home in a federal agency where they interpret what they wish … in context or not. Being right didn’t get us anywhere. We still jumped through hoops and got madder about it. Federalism gone bonkers.

Libertarians are accused of not wanting any rules. There are rants about wanting them to return to Wild West days — gunfights at the OK corral. Such a world would seem to ignore past wrongs. But, more rules seem capable not only of addressing issues but adding wrongs. The world isn’t like Newegg or Amazon. Real laws lack flexibility. And written out they get reinterpreted by functionaries with agendas.

It a damned if you do (Wolfie) and damned if you don’t (me) way of doing things. The real problem is revisiting the rules like Newegg. We see that rules fail with cause and effect. We aren’t willing to adjust.

Near the end of a recent blog I quoted Santayana. Here is part:

The future of moral evolution is accordingly infinite, but its character is more and more determinate at every step. Mankind can never, without perishing, surrender its animal nature, its need to eat and drink, its sexual method of reproduction, its vision of nature, its faculty of speech, its arts of music, poetry, and building.

Both the left and the right are on the warpath. Both are ignoring the obvious. Either can support the egregious actions that seem to support their cause. In that, they ignore that the solutions both propose make things worse — time and again.

We cannot legislate away from what Santayana says about who and what we are. Successful rules that change that will, over time, be negated by that self-interest. The real problems are one that Wolfie doesn’t want to see and I often won’t see. But, at least Newegg found a workable solution outside the box. Somehow the rest of society need to migrate in that direction. The current solution of law after law doesn’t do it. They ignore Santayana’s truths about us.

The problem with laws are they apply equally to everyone. Now that sounds like a good thing at first glance, but in today’s society we keep trying to legislate EVERYTHING. Too many people think the answer to specific issues are more laws and instead of addressing the issue the law is supposedly designed for, there are unintended consequences the lawmakers never thought of.

Unfortunately we have to have laws but do we need so many? How about putting a time limit on every law, an expiration date so that bad laws have a chance to expire without being repealed? At least that way we can get rid of bad laws without a vote and we can see how good a law is before we renew it. Doubt it would solve all the problems but it ought to take care of some.

@JoeC I might have taken exception to the boring comment. But, I read your morning post and recognize you have no idea what boring is, my little link monkey.

@neo It is always a situation of being careful what you wish for. We can expire laws by rescinding them too. Often, that is the ones that work. Bank regulation that came out of the Great Depression problems that were set aside by Clinton and a Republican congress come to mind.